Certification Summary

There will be situations in which you will need to shut down the Solaris system and reboot it—for example, scheduled maintenance procedures or an anticipated power outage. The system boot is controlled by the boot configuration variables. If the value of the auto-boot? variable is true, the system will boot automatically by using the default values; otherwise the Boot PROM command prompt ok will be displayed. You can manage the boot configuration variables by using a number of commands at this prompt, such as printenv to display the current values of the variables and setenv command to change the value of a variable. You can also use the eeprom command to change the values of the variables at the OS command line.

At the end of the boot process the system enters the default run level determined by the milestone property of the SMF service: svc.startd. If this property is set, the initdefault entry in the inittab file is ignored in Solaris 10. You can change the default run level of the system by using the svcadm command. A run level determines which services will be running on the system. You can change the run level of a running system by using the init command or the svcadm command. Shutting down the system means changing its run level to a level from which it is safe to turn off the power. Although most of the services in Solaris 10 are managed by SMF, the run control scripts are still executed for compatibility and to support legacy services.

Everything in UNIX (and hence in Solaris) is represented by files, and files are one of the most important resources supported by an operating system. In the next chapter, you will explore how to manage file systems in Solaris.

Inside the Exam

Comprehend

• The values of the configuration variables stored in the NVRAM chip persist across the power cycles.

• In Solaris 10, you should use the SMF command svcadm with the milestone as the argument to change (or set) the default: run level.

• You can use either the svcadm or the init command to change the run level of a system.

Look Out

• In Solaris 10, the initdefault entry in the /etc/inittab file is used for the default run level only if the milestone property for the svc.startd facility has not been defined.

• Both the init 0 and init 5 commands will shut down the system, but init 5 will also attempt to turn off the power if the hardware supports it.

• To display and change the NVRAM parameters, the eeprom command is used from the OS command line, whereas the setenv and printenv commands are used at the Boot PROM prompt ok.

Memorize

• You push the Stop-A keys to recover form a hung system. The Stop-D keys are used to force the POST execution if your system bypasses it by default.

• The halt -d command is used to force _; a crash dump.

• The devalias command is used to create a device alias that will not persist across power cycles, and the nvalias command is used to create a device alias that will persist across power cycles.

• The kdmconfig command can be used to configure or unconfigure the /etc/openwin/server/etc/OWconfig file with the keyboard, display, and mouse information relevant to a client's machine on x86-based systems.